from the that's-one-way-to-do-it dept

Over the weekend in Paris there was a so-called "Unity March" in response to last week's Charlie Hebdo attack. The photographs from the march were striking -- even if the famed photo of many world leaders holding hands and marching together turned out to a photo op on a closed street, rather than with the rest of the marchers. And, of course, this was all a facade. Many of the leaders who were there oversee governments that don't believe in free speech or a free press at all. Here, for example, is Jillian York trying to figure out if any of the leaders truly support freedom of expression.

And, to just put a big underline on the whole thing, just days later, France has arrested a famous and controverisal French comedian, Dieudonné, who has quite a reputation for his outspoken anti-semitism. The arrest was over a Facebook post that Dieudonné put up that basically mocked the "Je Suis Charlie" campaign that had become the rallying cry following the Charlie Hebdo attack, and instead indicated that he identified more with Amédy Coulibaly, a gunman who killed four people at a Jewish supermarket on Friday.

Dieudonné's views may be offensive, ridiculous or despicable, but it's much more offensive, ridiculous and despicable to have him arrested for a comment on Facebook. And, it's even more ridiculous to do it when his comment concerns the way people were expressing support for freedom of the press and freedom of expression.

To then immediately arrest someone for using that freedom to give a counter-view, just seems ridiculous.

And while it's the most high profile, Dieudonné is hardly the only target, apparently. According to the BBC, France has really ramped up attacks on free speech in response to all this damn support of free speech:

The justice ministry said earlier that 54 cases had been opened since the murders of 17 people in Paris last week. Of those, 37 cases involved condoning terrorism and 12 were for threatening to carry out terrorist acts.

Some fast-track custodial sentences have already been handed down under anti-terror legislation passed last November

A man of 22 was jailed on Tuesday for a year for posting a video mocking one of the three murdered policemen

A drunk driver was given four years in prison after making threats against the police who arrested him

Three men in their twenties were jailed in Toulouse for condoning terrorism

A man of 20 was jailed in Orleans for shouting "long live the Kalash[(nikov]" at police in a shopping center

Hey, France, I don't quite think you're getting the message. "I support free speech... so long as it is free speech that I sort of agree with" kind of misses the point. The views of some of these people expressing support for killers or terrorists or hatred towards certain types of people is speech that I find, personally, to be despicable. But those expressing it should be allowed to express it -- broadcasting their own confusion and ignorance to the world, and allowing others to counter that speech. Arresting people based on their speech only reinforces the ridiculous idea that they've come upon some truth or that they're speaking "truth to power." They're not. They're speaking nonsense, but in a free society we allow nonsense to be spoken.

Dispatch started receiving calls, including one from Kansas, the FBI, and Fox News who told Zion they heard it from a caller in Washington.

Mark was hauled off to the police station and questioned by Zion police. Considering recent events, one could be forgiven for assuming Mark is still in jail, facing terrorism charges and unaffordable bail. Oddly enough, the Zion police did a little investigating and realized Mark posed a threat to absolutely no one.

“There is no credibility to the threat. He has no weapons and no access to weapons,” he said.

The police took Mark's "threat" seriously, which isn't a problem. Law enforcement should investigate incidents like these to determine whether there's any seriousness to the threat. But unlike other police departments and prosecutors, no one attempted to pursue excessive criminal charges despite being unable to find anything that indicated the statement should be taken seriously.

The Zion Police still charged Mark with a crime, however -- disorderly conduct, a Class 4 felony. This seems excessive considering the police didn't find Mark's threat credible. Most likely this charge was issued as a result of the switchboard lighting up as "concerned" Tweeters nationwide reported the tweet. If you've got the perp down at the station and the FBI is on the phone, you can't very well let him walk away with nothing more than a "turn on brain before tweeting" warning.

Still, things could have been much, much worse. It's been noted that you can't "fix stupid." However, what we've seen lately indicates you can arraign it on terrorism charges.

from the 'terrorist'-gambit-fails;-adds-+20-to-Cammy-Dee's-street-cred dept

Cameron D'Ambrosio, the teen charged with "communicating terrorist threats" via some daft rap lyrics posted to his Facebook profile, is apparently no longer a threat to the people of Methuen, MA, and parts beyond. Facing a possible 20-year-sentence for his inclusion of such explosive terms as "White House," "murder charge" and "Boston bombinb" in his one-man online rap battle, D'Ambrosio has been held without bail since May 2nd. As of Thursday night, however, D'Ambrosio is free to killterrorize rhyme again. And, as an added bonus, he now has something in common with many of the rappers he clearly aspires to be: time served.

An Essex County grand jury declined Thursday to bring an indictment against Cameron D’Ambrosio, 18, so prosecutors will formally file a motion to drop the charge of making a bomb or hijack threat, said Carrie Kimball Monahan, a spokeswoman for the district attorney.

The D.A.'s office has declined to comment on the grand jury's decision, and D'Ambrosio and his lawyer are probably saving some choice words for a press conference. But that hasn't stopped the man behind this overreaction and the ensuing farcical approximation of criminal "justice." Here's what Police Chief Joe Solomon had to say in his press release (delivered via Facebook).

"I have just been advised of the Grand Jury decision from earlier today, where the grand jury did not issue an indictment on the high school threats case. Although we disagree with the Grand Jury's decision we respect it. Several judiciary levels have confirmed the probable cause in this case as it has worked it's way through the criminal justice system. We will continue to take all threats against our community seriously and will always utilize due diligence in our investigation."

Thank you Chief Solomon

A few things to note:

1. Suddenly it's only a "high school threats case," rather than the much more dangerous-sounding "communicating terroristic threats."

2. Shouldn't the "probable cause" have been determined before D'Ambrosio was even arrested?

Matthew Segal, the legal director at the ACLU of Massachusetts – who has worked on similar first amendment cases, though not this one – says it does not appear that D'Ambrosio's Facebook post rose to the level of a "true threat" warranting an investigation, which the grand jury has found as well. Segal notes that D'Ambrosio's words didn't target anybody or anything specifically, which the Methuen police have also acknowledged.

D'Ambrosio still has one more date hanging over his head -- June 27th -- during which prosecutors may decide to bring other charges. This seems unlikely considering the District Attorney's office has already announced it will not be pursuing this case further. Just in case, supporters of D'Ambrosio, led by the Center for Rights (whose Free Cameron petition gathered over 90,000 votes), will be on hand to show their support for Cameron -- and the First Amendment.

Seven teenage students in North Carolina were arrested on Thursday and charged with a misdemeanor for throwing water balloons during a school prank. A parent was also arrested during the incident.

The seven boys, all between the ages of 16 and 17, threw balloons filled with tap water as an end-of-year prank at Enloe High School in Raleigh. The balloons were rumored to be filled with “other substances,” but Wake County Public School System spokeswoman Renee McCoy said “all indications” were that only water was used.

Six of the teens were charged with disorderly conduct. The seventh was charged with assault and battery for hitting a school security officer with a balloon.

You've got to respect the uniform -- even if that uniform is a 50/50 polyester/ugly blend. If other students, teachers and administration staff get hit, that's a paddlin' simple "disorderly conduct" (a.k.a., the cop's best friend). And if you can't respect the security guard's uniform, you had damn well better respect the boys in blue, or you'll get thrown to the ground for throwing water balloons.

Swell. An unarmed parent who's concerned that someone (NOT A COP) might get hurt is handcuffed, threatened with a taser and charged for "causing trouble," which apparently goes on the books as "second degree trespassing."

The mother of an Enloe High School student has filed a complaint with the Raleigh Police Department after an officer threw her son to the ground Thursday as police responded to a water balloon battle at the school.

Call me naive, but I never thought I'd ever read a sentence this incongruous in my life: "...as police responded to a water balloon battle..." Tase me. Tase me now, lord. At least it wasn't a water pistol fight. Martial law would have been declared and the National Guard called in.

Here's the school's official statement on the "event."

Renee McCoy, a representative of Wake County Public Schools, said they rely on the training of the Raleigh Police Department in these situations. "We leave those decisions up to Raleigh PD," McCoy said.

Punt.

Seven kids with misdemeanors on their records ("released on bail" -- I am not kidding) for throwing weaponized water. I'm not really sure what schools are teaching kids at this point -- that every minor infraction must be dealt with swiftly and brutally? That violating school policies is a criminal offence? Whatever they're trying to teach by jettisoning critical thinking and replacing it with zero tolerance cops on speed dial, it's not getting through. All students are going to learn is that school administration has farmed out its disciplinary responsibilities to a variety of humorless, uniformed thugs -- some private, some public -- and that there really is no crime too small.

from the producing-excessive-noise? dept

Thanks to an enforced climate of fear, law enforcement and security agencies remain deeply suspicious of photography in public places. Despite the fact that most public places are now covered in cameras erected by law enforcement and security, the prevailing view seems to be that a member of the public "armed" with a camera is a threat that should be dealt with immediately. The law is rarely on the side of those doing the law enforcement, oddly enough, but that doesn't stop them from trying.

Armed with ignorance, along with guns, tasers, nightsticks and the safety of numbers, these enforcers continue to violate the rights of citizens, often destroying evidence of their misguided actions in the process.

Photographer, blogger, and photographers rights’ activist Carlos Miller has made headlines quite a few times over the past few years with his legal rumbles with authorities over photography in public places. Miller, who often instigates the disputes for the purpose of bringing photographers’ rights into the spotlight, recently had another big confrontation with authorities in Miami (it’s not the first time it has happened).

According to Miller, his friend was photographing Dade County Courthouse from the rail platform and he was photographing his friend... Miller says that they were spotted by a security guard and warned over a loudspeaker to stop shooting photographs. When they didn’t put their cameras away, security guards arrived to confront them.

As is usually the case when the enforcement agency is operating on little more than a combination of gut instinct and vague directives, the security guards spent a bit of time shuffling through their deck of possible charges in hopes of making one stick.

First, they told Miller that it was illegal to photograph the rail portion of the train, something that is completely false. According to Eric Muntan, Chief of Safety and Security of the metro, noncommercial photography is "perfectly fine." (Which didn't stop Miller from receiving a completely unenforceable "lifetime ban" from the Metrorail.)

When challenged on this claim, the responding guard switched over to accusing Miller of being drunk because he smelled alcohol on his breath. Again, there's nothing illegal in Miami about being drunk in public (Miller states he had three drinks in two hours while watching a football game) -- one has to be considered a "threat to public safety" before it's considered a crime.

At that point, they decided trespassing might be the way to go, considering they'd asked Miller to leave and he hadn't. When nothing else worked, the guards wrestled him to the ground, seized his camera, seized the camera his friend was holding (temporarily), before cuffing them both and turning them over to the Miami PD. Miller notes that the guards "surprisingly" returned both phones before releasing them to Miami-Dade law enforcement.

So, the end result is nothing illegal occurred and yet, two people were cuffed and delivered to the police department and handed a $100 fine for "loud noise," most of which was actually created by the three security guards. While no one expects a third-party security team to be familiar with all the legal aspects of their coverage area, one would at the very least expect them to know what comprises legal photography, especially considering the safety chief's directive. This sort of thing applies directly to 50 State's security responsibilities. The fact that this whole situation began with a loudspeaker announcement directing the pair to "stop taking pictures" gives it another layer of unseemly Big Brother-ish state-ordained paranoia. There was no legal basis for the stop and no evidence of any wrongdoing, but those "securing" the Metrorail went ahead and shut them down anyway, because that's the attitude fostered all the way up the line to the DHS.

from the wouldn't-put-it-past-them dept

Over the weekend, when the news broke that Gottfrid Svartholm, the founder of The Pirate Bay, had been arrested in Cambodia, I didn't think too much of it. It was well known that he was in that part of the world, and you had to figure that sooner or later he'd be tracked down. Despite claims that he was too ill to show up for the appeal of The Pirate Bay trial in Sweden, many questioned if he was just hiding out in southeast Asia to avoid any potential jail time. Over the past few days, some additional info has come out that is certainly raising eyebrows, even if the evidence is circumstantial. And the biggest bit of news may be that his arrest might not even be about The Pirate Bay.

Either way, let's start with the basics. First, Cambodia has admitted that it will be deporting Svartholm, even though there's no extradition treaty between Cambodia and Sweden. Of course, deportation and extradition are not the same thing, and you don't need an extradition treaty to deport someone. But it is still notable.

At this point, it certainly could all be a coincidence -- which is the direction I tend to lean for the time being -- but it is quite a coincidence. We already know that the US government has been heavily involved in getting Sweden to put The Pirate Bay on trial. In fact, the US's deep involvement in Swedish copyright laws and policies has been a source of friction with some Swedish officials. Furthermore, Ron Kirk's entire role is about negotiating agreements and treaties between countries -- so the fact that a Swedish/Cambodia deal came together just as he was in the country? It certainly wouldn't be shocking to find out that he had a hand in making the deal happen.

But, let's add in one more bit of info. Svartholm's fellow TPB'er Peter Sunde is claiming that the arrest is not related to The Pirate Bay, though other reports claim otherwise. Some other friends are also insisting that it's not related to TPB, though I will admit to being skeptical. More surprising, perhaps, is Sunde's suggestion that the arrest may actually have more to do with Wikileaks, which Svartholm's company used to host, rather than The Pirate Bay... Of course, if that's the case, it doesn't discount the involvement of the US or Sweden (and might only reinforce it). Though it does add an element of... oddity to the whole situation.

Of course, even if the arrest is about something else, if he does end up being shipped back to Sweden, the TPB issue won't just go away. And it's likely that whoever is involved -- whether it's these other two governments or not -- recognizes that as well.

Update: TorrentFreak is now reporting that the arrest is about a tax hack:

Svartholm’s arrest is related to a hacking operation that may date back to 2010.

The hack targeted Swedish IT company Logica, which supplies services to the Swedish tax office. Earlier this year the hack made the headlines when the tax numbers of 9,000 Swedes leaked online.

from the wow dept

If you're an internet "old timer" who paid attention to the early "spam wars," you know the name of Sanford "Spamford" Wallace. While plenty of people have been described as "the spam king," he was the original kingpin (starting in the junk fax business, and then moving on to email in the mid-90s). He was proud of being called the spam king... but after the business started to become risky, he claimed that he "retired" in the late 90s, and (partially) owned a nightclub. However, the lure of the spam was apparently too much. He jumped into the spyware business and ran into trouble with the FTC. Things got weird when Wallace disappeared and his lawyer asked to withdraw from the case, noting that he couldn't reach Wallace. Wallace was hit with a massive fine from the FTC, which it appears he ignored.

He then moved on to spamming MySpace, which got him sued. His strategy was established: he just ignored the lawsuit. The end result? A $234 million fine. Of course, MySpace went downhill and up came Facebook. Facebook sued him in 2009 and won an astounding $711 million. This time, Wallace actually did show up in court, but claimed he was totally bankrupt. We wondered, at the time, if there was actually anything that could be done to stop him, since he seemed to just keep on spamming, and the fines (and some of the cases themselves) being issued against him were just ignored. There were some questions two years ago if he'd finally be brought up on criminal charges, and it appears that's finally happened.

Wallace apparently surrendered to the FBI after an indictment last month. He's now facing 40 years in jail and a potential $2 million fine (which seems like nothing compared to the earlier fines).

Some of the details in the article also suggest that Wallace simply couldn't stay away from Facebook, despite a court order not to access the site at all:

Wallace, who was ordered by U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel in 2009 not to access Facebook, was also charged with violating that order by accessing the social network on an airline flight from Las Vegas to New York in April 2009 and by maintaining an account under the name David Sinful-Saturdays Fredericks for a few weeks earlier this year.

I will say that 40 years sounds excessive. However, it also seems clear that he has no interest in following the law when it comes to these things.

from the freedom-of-the-press dept

It really is quite amazing how so many authority types these days can't seem to comprehend the idea that people can and will take phones and record public events. Sinan Unur alerts us to the news of how two reporters were arrested in Washington DC while attending a public meeting of the DC Taxi Commission, which was meeting over a planned medallion system for taxis (used in many other cities, but somewhat controversial due to the ability to artificially restrict the market). Apparently, a reporter by the name of Pete Tucker was arrested for taking a photograph, and then Reason's Jim Epstein filmed the arrest and subsequent outrage by pretty much everyone in attendance. He then tried to leave, and the police tried to get his camera and then arrested him as well. You don't see him arrested in the video, but the woman at the end who declares that he has no right to film her (false, since this is a public place) apparently is told by a police officer that Epstein's phone would be turned over to her, which raises questions as to why police would be handing a phone over to someone else.

from the this-is-a-problem dept

Yesterday, we wrote about a woman who was facing 15 years in jail for using her cameraphone to videotape part of her effort to get Internal Affairs of the Chicago Police Department to investigate an officer, whom she claims sexually assaulted her. Apparently, this sort of situation is not unique in Illinois. Another story this week tells about an artist who set out to do a reasonable bit of civil disobedience: to protest a Chicago ordinance concerning where and when he could sell artwork on the street. He intended to get arrested for that misdemeanor by selling his art. As part of this, he had a First Amendment lawyer with him... and a video crew. Well, he did get arrested, but not for the misdemeanor of selling artwork in the wrong spot, but for the same felony of eavesdropping and is facing the same 15 years in prison as the woman we spoke about yesterday. Apparently, a big part of the problem is Illinois' Eavesdropping Act, which seems to create this ridiculous situation. Of course, the fact that prosecutors are actually moving forward with charges on such things is equally ridiculous. It's a good reminder of a reason to stay away from Chicago.

from the someone-please-explain dept

A bunch of folks have been sending in various versions of the story of a guy (described as an "anarchist") who was allegedly arrested for using social media tools like Twitter to organize protesters at the recent G20 Summit in Pittsburgh. The specific charges are for "hindering prosecution," but it seems like there must be some details missing. All around, the whole thing sounds pretty extreme. What's illegal about organizing protesters?